FORESDA - Pilot Projects About To Be Started

21-12-2017

One of the most interesting activities group of FORESDA project is the design, and implementation of pilot innovation environments, that should address one or several of the needs defined in the Transnational Strategy document. The actual implementation of the pilots is having a strong regional character. Each region will implement and develop different pilot innovation environment but they can all be grouped into three thematic focuses: (1) Smart and sustainable construction and furniture, (2) Non-conventional uses of wood-based materials and (3) Energy efficiency. FORESDA expects to initiate cooperation between SMEs and R&D organisation in the framework of the pilot projects, which shall be platforms where SMEs and knowledge providers come together in order to explore new technologies, processes or methods. An average of 15 connections per pilot is expected. The ideas are already developed and the roadmaps for each of the pilot environment are being finalized. The implementation will start in January 2018 and the first evaluation procedure is planned for June 2018. The activities on the pilots will be also connected with the activities in workpackage 6, related to the mentoring and mutual learning from more to less advanced partners, taking into account the respective innovation capacity in the involved countries, but also the specific level of maturity of the respective regional innovation systems.